 Hey guys, it's Jen from iCreateCrafts. In today's video tutorial, I'm going to be showing you step-by-step how to create this cute DIY round wood serving tray. It was so easy to create and took me under an hour to create it and less than $15 to create. Now, let's get started. All right, so before I started to design space and do my vinyl detail, I wanted to show you this really quick. This is the wood that I'm going to be using and I have three different sizes. So this one is the 12 inch round. This one is a 15 inch round and then it goes all the way up to an 18 inch round. I mean, obviously they have bigger ones, but these are the sizes that I bought. I make signs out of these as well. So if you haven't seen those, go back and check those out because they turn out really awesome. So out of the three ones here, I think I'm actually gonna go for the largest one. We're gonna see how it turns out. So I'm gonna be using this 18 inch round, but I wanted to show you really quick how I figure out the sizes. So I'm just gonna open this up really quick. And I love this wood because it is already sanded for you. So when you're going to paint it or stain it or whatever you're going to do with it, you don't have to sand it. It's already done for you. I would actually recommend doing the sides a little bit though because it just makes the paint or the stain stick a little bit easier. But here it is just in case you want to see it better. This is the 18 inch round panel. These are glued, so they do go in one direction. And sometimes I actually do sand this, but it doesn't seem too bad. You can just rub your hands across it and see because you want your vinyl sticker to stick on it while you're gonna paint it. Let's just see the other side. So sometimes one sides are better than the other, like this side has this little crack on it and this thing over here, which is really neat, but it's hard to paint over so you can see the spot up here. So when I do go ahead and do this, I'm gonna do it this way. And I'm also gonna do it the way of the green, but I'll get into that further when I'm painting. So before I even start my stencil, I take my green mat or whatever mat you have, and or you can use a tape measure or whatever you have, but I always like just to use my green mat then I can kind of visualize where it's gonna go on here. So I just like to do to see how big it is. So I know it's 18 inches round, right? So we know that part, but for this one, I'm gonna put handles on each side. So like preferably in the middle. And I really like this because I can tell right here how wide it's gonna be because that's how big the piece was. But I want to have handles here. So what I'm gonna do is just measure this and kind of see how wide I want this piece to go in the middle where it's gonna say welcome on it. Or I'm not really exactly sure what I'm gonna put on it yet, but whatever I do, I want to make sure I have the correct distance here. So I can kind of see it. Whoops, lost my mat. There it goes. I can kind of see where they have the glue part. You can kind of follow the lines here on it, which is almost perfect for where I want to put my handles. But I just want to measure in between how much I want to put in here. And I'm gonna take my mat and just kind of hold it up here. And like I said, you can use a tape measure if you want. I just like using my mat so I can see how much in between I want to put it. So I'm gonna put the, you know, paint in between here and stain the rest of it. But I can visualize here how much I want to do. So I know it's gonna be five. So I know that my stencil has to be at least five inches tall and then obviously by the 18. So I'm gonna have to use the larger mat, the 24-inch mat. But now that I know the size of it that I want, now I can go to Cricut and show you how I'm gonna cut it out and what it's gonna say. So stay tuned. Okay, so I'm starting in design space. I need to create a file. If you have one in mind already, go ahead and use that one. But if you don't, please feel free to follow along and create your own. So I'm going to start here in the text box right here and I'm going to type in welcome. And this just gives you the regular Cricut brand font that it always starts with. I'm actually going to make this a little bit wider so we can see what it looks like. I'm going to go up to the font box up here and change the font. And I have one in mind already. So I'm going to click on that, go to system and I'm going to type in Goldie. And this is the font I'm going to be using. It's called Goldie Rainbow. And this is what it looks like. And I'm going to make a little bit bigger so we can see it. So this one is not in design space. You actually have to go to defont.com and download this and put it into design into design space. If you're new at that and you don't know how to do it, I do have a video tutorial. I'll leave it in the link below. So the next part that I want to do is get these letters a little bit closer together. So to do that, I already have it selected. I'm going to go to the letter spacing up here. And I'm just going to click the down arrow until I get it where I want it to be. A couple of things I'm looking for, I'm going to stretch this out a little bit as I'm making sure that they're overlapping enough. I can see a little piece here, so I want to do it maybe once more. So I'm going to click the down arrow one more time. So it looks like it's touching really well. The other thing I want to do is make the W a little bit farther away. I'm going to do that as well. It's selected. I'm going to go up to the ungroup button. That will individually cut out each piece separately. So I'm just going to take the W, use my arrow and move it just a couple of times. Everything else, I love the way it looks. I'm going to grab it all and I'm going to push the weld button. So I push weld instead of attach because if you would attach it, all these little pieces would cut out here. Your cricket machine wouldn't know any better and you would have little cut marks in each piece where you put them together. So I always use the weld button. I'm going to shrink this up so I can show you the next part. So I'm going to go back to the text box. And I'm going to type in, we're so glad you're here. But because I already use Goldie, that's what it's going to come up as. So we're going to change that in a minute. So here it is in Goldie and we don't want that because I don't want it to be the same. So I'm going to go up to the text box and I'm going to exit of this one. I'm going to go to all and I'm going to type in base because the one I want to use is called base camp. So I'm going to show you there's a few different ones here. This base camp, this base camp charm. I'm just going to use this base camp one. I'm just showing you which ones that I like. So I'm going to take it and shrink it just a little bit. And as you can see, it's a different color. I want it to be the same color as this black one. So with this part selected, I'm going to go up to a little question mark up here and I'm going to put it to black so it's all the same. And you can see it's going to cut. It says basic cut. This one says basic cut, so we're good to go. So the last thing I want to do is actually move this up here and kind of estimate where I want it. I like it that it's just a little bit smaller here than it. And it fits really well underneath. Maybe I'll make it just a little bit. I'm going to unlock it and make it a little bit larger here. I don't want it to look stretched out, but I want to be able to see it better. So there we go. And I'll move it over just a little bit more. Perfect. So the other thing you're going to want to do is figure out your size. So like I said, I want mine to be at least five inches high. And I know my circle is 18 inches, so I don't want to go over that. So to show you something I like to visualize things to what it's going to look like. I'm going to click on the shape here and I'm going to click circle. And I'm going to go up here. I'm not going to unlock it. I'm going to leave it the way it is and then change it to be 18. And then it's going to change the other one for me. So I'm going to shrink my screen really quick so we can see it. So this is the size of your circle or the size that I'm using. It's 18 by 18. Now I can visualize it to see what it's going to look like. But I want these two pieces to be together. So I select both of those and I'm just going to go to the attach button. I'm going to bring it down here and we're going to look and kind of see. So I know I want the height to be five. So I'm going to unlock it here and I'm going to change this to be five because that's what I know I want it to be at least five inches high. Wide, I can figure that out whatever I want. Whatever looks good, I guess I could say. But I want to make sure that the height is always going to be five. So I'm just going to take it and move it, go up here, change this again to the five. And there it is. So I don't really care how wide it is right now. I just wanted to make sure the height was the same. I like to have mine a little bit offset. I don't like my welcome to be right in the middle. So and then you also have to remember you're going to put handles on the side here. So no matter where you're going to put yours, you got to leave yourself room on the side for the handles. So it doesn't matter right now where I put it, because I'm going to cut just this part out, the circle is just to visualize what it would look like and where you want to put it and how big you want it. So I love it the way that it looks. So I'm going to move this out of the way and I'm going to get rid of the circle. But because I'm painting mine and not leaving the vinyl on it, there's one other thing that I like to do. If you want to leave just vinyl on it and then poly it later, that's fine. But I like to use paint on all my signs. So I'm going to go up to the shapes again and I'm going to click square and I'm going to put the square around here. So I'm going to unlock it and then just drag it over. And don't worry, your image is still there. It's just behind it. So I'm going to click the arrange button and send to back. So here is this one. This one is the in the front of this other one. So you can go up here and see. So if you did it again, it would go backwards. So that's just showing you where it is. So again, this is the reason I'm using this extra little square behind it is because when I go to paint, I want to have room to be able to get my, you know, my little sponge brush up here and not worry about getting it on the board. So I only need a little bit of room. So I'm just taking this and shrinking it down to give myself just enough room that I can easily get my little foam brush in here without going over. So if I make my screen bigger, you guys will see. Oops, so I can get to it that this is the actual size of the cut out itself. So I just need a little bit of room. So I'm just going to take it and shrink a little bit more. So I'm not wasting so much vinyl and then I'll just put this up here. One last thing I want to do is just center all of this. So I'm going to take both of them and then I'm going to go to the align button and center it. And the only reason I centered it is because when I cut it out, this is going to be my piece that I visualize on my board. So I can tell where I want to put it. OK, so the last thing I want to do is actually slice all of this. And because you can only slice two pieces at a time, I'm going to need to detach this one. So I have this part selected. I go to the detach button and I'm going to take the first part, the welcome. I'm going to hold down my command button. It might be your shift or your control button for you. I have a Mac computer, so mine might be different. So with the selected, hold down the command button and I'm going to click the black square behind it and I'm going to click slice. So here's the first part here. I'm trying to make sure I grab the correct piece. So I'm going to go ahead and take this one and X that one out. So I want just that piece here. So I'm going to go ahead and get rid of that one. I'm going to do the same thing. This one I'm going to have to put back. Again, it's still there. I'm going to go to a range, send forward. Here it is, line it up where I want it and then do the same thing. Select this part, hold the command button down and then click on the square behind it and then click slice. There we go. That will get me get rid of this one and the other one so that when I cut this out, I'm going to reverse weight this and take out all of this just the way that it looks. So I'm going to wait all the white part and leave the rest. So instead of peeling back the vinyl and leaving the letters, I'm going to do just the opposite. So that's called reverse weight. But this is going to make it so much easier that when I lay it on my board, not only will it be nice and square for me and I'll be able to know where to put it, but I'm not going to have any problems with painting around it. So I'm going to go to the make it button. This is what it's going to look like. It's telling me I need to use a larger mat. So I'm going to click OK. I'm going to click continue. Let my machine connect to it. And then I'll show you which base materials I use. So if you guys know my channel, you know that I don't really use a lot of Cricut brand. Honestly, I hate the Cricut brand. It seems so much more. I don't even know what the word is. Flimsy, it's not. It doesn't hold up as well as the materials that I buy off of Amazon. So I'll leave the links below to a few of the vinyls that I buy. But I just use the stencil vinyl right here. So I'm going to click on that one. I'm going to leave everything the way it is. I already have my blade in. I'm going to put my black. OK, here's another thing. I'm going to put my black vinyl on. But I'm using 631, the non permanent vinyl. If you use 651 and the permanent, it will pull back your paint. So please be sure that you use 631 or I think it's 813 as well you can use. But I have 631. So I'm going to be using the non permanent kind. I'm going to put it on my mat. I'm going to cut it out. I'll reverse weed it, like I said, and then I'll show you the next step of painting your boards or staining however you want to do it. But just how I do it. So stay along. All right, guys, I just have to pause really quick and say I'm sorry. I lost the next part of my footage to this. I did take some painters tape and I painted this part in between. Please forgive me for missing up and skipping this part. So the next part you'll see that it is painted already. So I did actually go ahead and paint it, but I just didn't get it on camera. OK, so my paint is completely dry here and I reversed weeded my vinyl here. I use 631. So it's the non permanent kind. I'm just going to put it in the middle here. So I was thinking before I wanted to have this on the side here. But after looking at this more and thinking what it would look like with the handle on, here's the handle that I'm going to be using. I have two of these. I think it would be kind of silly to be all the way over to the side. So I'm going to do my best to put it in the middle. Everything I do homemade, I love making. So I always kind of just estimate where it should go. So I just have a piece of transfer tape here. I already cut this out to size to fit my vinyl. This is just regular transfer tape. You can buy this at the dollar store or even on Amazon. I will leave the link below to the Amazon one just because you get a bigger roll itself, so it's just easier to work with when you have just a bigger one. So I'm just going to take my transfer tape starting on one side and work my way so I don't get any bubbles in here. And then just keep going all the way. And then take your little squeegee and work really well with this because you want your transfer tape to stick to your vinyl. And you want to make sure you catch all these little pieces here on like the L's, the O's, the C's, and then especially down here at the bottom. So I just like to work with it really roughly, I guess, without cutting or putting a hole in the transfer tape. But just work really well so you get all those little pieces on there. Now, once you think you've got it, I always like flipping it over so I make sure I get my whole design. And then I just peel back the transfer tape. So here it is, I have it all on here perfectly. So now what I'm going to do is line up the black pieces here. So I did take the tape off here already because I knew I wasn't going to paint up at the top anymore. So my lines were nice and crisp. You can see something right here, but that's just part of the wood. It's just a hole in the wood, so there's nothing I can do there. So the paint worked really well. So the next thing I'm going to do is just line this up at the top. And it's going to be straight because when I cut out the square on here, it cut it out nice and straight for me. So now I don't have to guess which way to put it. So it's completely straight. I'm just looking on the sides here to make sure I have equal amount on each side so my handles can go on. And then once you like where it is, you just take your hands and slide a little bit. Making sure you don't have any bubbles or anything in your transfer. And then you just push down. Same thing before, you want this to stick really well to your board. But I'm using 631, which is not permanent. So when I pull this vinyl up, it should not pull any of the paint up. If you're using permanent, it will definitely pull up the paint. It's going to take my time and make sure I push this on here really well. And then you want to peel back your transfer tape, leaving the vinyl behind. So again, the reverse weed. So now I'm just going to go with my fingers and feel if there's any spots that could be pushed down just a little bit more because you do not want your paint to seep through here. So everything's on here really well. So the next step you want to do is actually go over with the same color used on the background here. And the reason for that is it helps your board so you don't have any paint seeping through all the times that I've done this. I've never had any paint seep through. So I'm going to take the same paint that I was using before, which is this eclipse paint and then use a sponge brush like this that I picked up at the dollar store and just do up and down motions. I'm not rubbing it. I'm not going back and forth. I'm just going to go up and down, blotting it. And once that dries, I'm going to go over it with my linen and white with the same process that another sponge like this, but the same exact process just going up and down on. And then you're also going to need a piece of paper towel to kind of blot the extra off. You don't want to have a whole bunch under here or seeping through. OK, so I have my paper towel here and I'm just going to take my sponge and put it in here, but then I'm going to blot some of this paint off. You don't want a bunch of paint on here. So I'm going to take it like this and just blot it over here and then just do what I said, just an up and down motion. You're just going over the paint that you did before. And this is going to make sure that the paint does not seep through. I've seen people and heard about people doing Mod Podge, but I've never tried that, but I've just heard really bad things about it because it is like a glue. So this is the way that I do it. You could try it this way or you could try the Mod Podge method. But this is how I do it. And I've never had any bleeding. I'm going to let this dry completely to the touch and then I'm going to go over it with the white doing the same exact thing. So stay tuned. I really love how this is turning out so far. I cannot wait till it's finished to show you the finished project. OK, so now my paint is completely dry. Now I see there was a couple of spots that are sticking up here from the vinyl. I'm just going to use a squeegee and push them out. You do not want any spots sticking up here. Otherwise, you will have bleeding. So there was only a few, but I fixed it. So the next thing you want to do is the same thing. Use another sponge brush or makeup brush and then just dab it onto your paint. And then I'm just also dabbing it onto the paper towel so it's not going on thick. And I'm just going to do the same thing, just up and down motions. You can do as many coats as you want, as dark as you want to make it. But I'm just doing light up and down motions because the first and second coat are not supposed to be dark. You're just supposed to go on just so you put the first color on. All right, so I did two coats on here and here's my handle. I'm going to be putting on. I'm going to carefully peel this back and hopefully that the stain does not come up underneath it. It is still a little bit wet. I like to do it when it's just a little bit wet yet. So I'm not pulling up the stain, which I can see it's pulling up some of the stain already, but it does kind of look like it's rustic. But on the other hand, the lines are nice and crisp. There is not any bleeding underneath your whatsoever, which looks amazing. And I kind of like it that it looks a little pulled. And I think I know the reason for it. This is the first piece of wood that I did not sand. It says it's pre-sanded and I did not sand this one. So I think I made the mistake there of not extra sanding this. But I kind of like it that it gives it like a rustic look to it. But we'll see what it looks like when I'm all finished pulling this up. I actually do like it. It makes it look very rustic. So I might take like some sandpaper and do it on the edge here. But in the meantime, I'm going to take my weeder here and go in and get out these little pieces here. All right, so here it is. I see one little mistake on here, too. But again, I love homemade stuff because it's not store bought. You know that you made it yourself. But there is a spot right here that the Y didn't turn out very well. But here are the handles. So I'm just going to go ahead and pre-drill a hole in these. But this is what it's going to look like. And I am very happy how this turned out. I think I'm just going to take a little bit of sandpaper and maybe go around the edges here or maybe just leave it. Like I said, it's just going upstairs in my rental unit. But I really love how this turned out. I do see actually one more spot that I missed here with this E. But what do you guys think? Do you like this? Did you like this tutorial? Did it help you? Did you learn from my mistakes, which I hope you do. That's why I love doing these videos to show you guys step by step how to make things. My videos might be a little bit longer, but I love showing you step by step rather than just going quickly and not showing you everything. Or if you make a mistake, how you can fix it. So learn from my mistakes. They completely sand this before you do it, even though it said it was already pre-sanded. You want to go ahead and sand it some more. So I will learn that from the next time I do this. But I'm really excited how this turned out. So I just have to pre-drill the holes in here and I'm going to put the handles on. But then I'll show you what it looks like when it's all done and upstairs in my rental unit. What do you guys think? You like this? Give me a thumbs up if you do. Hit the subscribe button if you haven't already. And leave me some comments below. I love hearing from you guys. This project was so much fun to make. I hope it helps you out and I hope you go and create your own DIY round wood serving tray. Hit that thumbs up button if you enjoyed this video and leave me a comment below. Happy crafting everyone.